This Photographer's Nude Portraits Make A Powerful Statement About Beauty

This Photographer's Nude Portraits Make A Powerful Statement About Beauty

Jade Beall has an eye for the divine. The Tuscon, AZ photographer snaps studio portraits of nursing mothers, unconventional families and interracial couples. Through her eyes, her lens, viewers see a world in which everyone is beautifully unique and worthy of love.

In the wake of a series documenting every kind of mother, Beall has found unexpected fame with a much older demographic. A set of her photos focusing on the love of a nude, 70-something couple have garnered attention from across the internet.

Gerry, 75, and Darwin, 70, have been together for more than two decades. Although their bodies have changed — and sagged — immeasurably, the pair say they've grown closer than ever. Their love was so palpable that Beall told the press it brought her to tears in the studio, and it certainly shines from the images like a ray of sunlight.

She said,

They're so in love. They started kissing a few times and I was like, ‘Damn, I haven't kissed like that in years!'

The couple, who wrote Beall a letter she published to Facebook after the photos began attracting attention, say they hope their images help others understand the body doesn't stop being beautiful and worthy of love after it ages.

Gerry writes,

Although I was not ugly earlier in my life, as I look back at photos today, I thought I was. It is so strange that I can look at the 75 year-old body in your photographs with some distance and love and feel great about her strength, her good health, and yes — her allure to the man she loves.

Emily Arata is a Women's Editor raised in the Twin Cities. She graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx and previously wrote for First We Feast. She writes about the unlikely ways in which millennials connect with one another.

Emily Arata is a Women's Editor raised in the Twin Cities. She graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx and previously wrote for First We Feast. She writes about the unlikely ways in which millennials connect with one another.